promoting noble rot
 

Has anyone ever promoted noble rot for your vines? If so, was it successful?
What did you do?

Some professional vineyards in California and Australia inoculate botrytis.
Has anyone ever done this on an amateaur level?

Or...have you ever discovered botrytis and didn't want it? How did you
discourage or get rid of it?

Regards
Jeff Chorniak

Weather has a lot to do with it, you need that. It looks ugly as sin,
but really concentrates the flavors on the berries affected. Tokaji
Aszu from Hungary is made this way and it is phenomenal, maybe better
than Sauterne.

Before you try to reproduce it you may want to consider your weather
patterns and see if they are favorable. I have no experience in
innoculating it, I do know it only occurs naturally once in a while in
most areas.

Joe


hunter wrote:
> Has anyone ever promoted noble rot for your vines? If so, was it
successful?
> What did you do?
>
> Some professional vineyards in California and Australia inoculate
botrytis.
> Has anyone ever done this on an amateaur level?
>
> Or...have you ever discovered botrytis and didn't want it? How did
you
> discourage or get rid of it?
>
> Regards
> Jeff Chorniak

I'll promote noble rot. Go nobel rot!! I'm in favor of noble rot! I
think it should be everywhere!

Sorry, this post is mostly for the cheap joke. Please forgive me.

Actually, since Botrytis is a fungus, I'd *guess* that one would
actually be looking for a pro-fungus situation (wet, etc.) that somehow
didn't also promote other nasty strains of fungi/mildew. Additionally,
just looking at some websites about *control* of Botrytis (apparently
not everyone promotes it...), I used to get it all the time on
strawberries naturally, so one could try to "culture" it on a different
plant, then transfer it when the time was correct.

But, I think I'll just wait for natural luck to have it happen to me -
got lucky last year in buying grapes that had a touch. It's a
non-late-harvest Riesling, with some very interesting flavors.

Rob

I got botrytis on the 'not-quite-ripe' portion of my harvest of
zinfandel by putting those bunches loosely in an unsealed plastic bag in
my garage, and just waited for the botrytis to appear. Only a couple of
the grapes actually spoiled, and I culled them.

Leaving the grapes long enough on a vine will eventually promote
botrytis (the spores are probably present in all vineyards). The
portion of the same vineyard that wasn't harvested also developed
botrytis, but had quite a bit of spoiled grapes due to rain-induced molds.

I guess that may be why botrytis is inoculated earlier in the ripening
process... get it without the spoilage.

I'm also interested in other's experience.

Gene

hunter wrote:
> Has anyone ever promoted noble rot for your vines? If so, was it successful?
> What did you do?
>
> Some professional vineyards in California and Australia inoculate botrytis.
> Has anyone ever done this on an amateaur level?
>
> Or...have you ever discovered botrytis and didn't want it? How did you
> discourage or get rid of it?
>
> Regards
> Jeff Chorniak
>
>

I got botrytis on the 'not-quite-ripe' portion of my harvest of
zinfandel by putting those bunches loosely in an unsealed plastic bag in
my garage, and just waited for the botrytis to appear. Only a couple of
the grapes actually spoiled, and I culled them.

Leaving the grapes long enough on a vine will eventually promote
botrytis (the spores are probably present in all vineyards). The
portion of the same vineyard that wasn't harvested also developed
botrytis, but had quite a bit of spoiled grapes due to rain-induced molds.

I guess that may be why botrytis is inoculated earlier in the ripening
process... get it without the spoilage.

I'm also interested in other's experience.

Gene

hunter wrote:
> Has anyone ever promoted noble rot for your vines? If so, was it successful?
> What did you do?
>
> Some professional vineyards in California and Australia inoculate botrytis.
> Has anyone ever done this on an amateaur level?
>
> Or...have you ever discovered botrytis and didn't want it? How did you
> discourage or get rid of it?
>
> Regards
> Jeff Chorniak
>
>

hunter wrote:
> Has anyone ever promoted noble rot for your vines? If so, was it
successful?
> What did you do?
>
> Some professional vineyards in California and Australia inoculate
botrytis.
> Has anyone ever done this on an amateaur level?
>
> Or...have you ever discovered botrytis and didn't want it? How did
you
> discourage or get rid of it?
>
> Regards
> Jeff Chorniak

I haven't done this (yet), but I've tried to read up on it.

The spores do appear to be pretty prevalent and weather conditions
appear to have more to do with promoting beneficial results. The spores
need some heat and moisture to start up and then enter the grape
through the skin allowing water to escape, thus concentrating the good
stuff in the grape. After the grapes are infected, dryer weather is
needed to help the desiccation process and to hold other infections in
check.

Some areas appear to promote Botrytis because of high humidity during
the later ripening stage, followed by dry heat. Others have fog that
rolls in but burns off during the day.

Either way, rain during the period appears to be detrimental because it
can wash the spores off the grapes and it allows the vines to soak up
water, swelling the grapes.

Andy